Ocular irrigation is a well-known procedure for treatment of eyes that are traumatized or otherwise have medical ailments. The Morgan Lens® is one well-known commercial ocular lens product. Currently, the Morgan Lens® is standard equipment in approximately 95% of hospital emergency rooms in the United States. The Morgan lens is capable of delivering a continuous flow of irrigation solution to an injured or compromised eye within seconds of being applied to the eye. There are many documented advantages of using an ocular irrigation device like the Morgan Lens® to handle a wide range of trauma and other ocular ailments.
The original Morgan Lens® is disclosed in the U.S. Pat. No. 3,664,340, and is hereby incorporated by reference herein. In short, the invention disclosed in this US patent includes an insertable and removable precision molded cup shaped ocular lens or eye shield. The lens more specifically is an integral, one piece unit including a cornea lens of a requisite diameter and convexity, and a surrounding peripheral and conformable rim. An opening is formed in the lens for attachment of a hollow stem or “chimney”. The stem communicates with tubing which carries irrigation fluid so that the fluid may flow through the hollow stem to the area under the lens. One fundamental aspect of use of this ocular lens is that the irrigation fluid introduced causes the lens to float above the surface of the eye while continuously irrigating the eye. The irrigating solution creates a continuous film between the underside of the ocular lens and the exposed surface of the eye. The ocular lens is therefore capable of providing a continuous lavage to the cornea and conjunctiva, floating on the irrigating solution and not touching the cornea.
In many cases, the irrigating solution can provide instant relief to chemical or thermal burns, and may remove non-embedded foreign materials in the eye. Another aspect of the Morgan Lens® is that pressure applied to the cornea is minimized since the introduced fluid is capable of freely flowing outward beyond the peripheral edge of the ocular lens. This free flowing characteristic ensures the ocular lens can maintain its floating position above and away from contact with the cornea.
As time has progressed, ocular lenses like the Morgan Lens® find ever-increasing uses in hospitals and other treatment centers. In order to better service widely varying uses of ocular lenses, the below described invention was developed to address some existing and new needs in the field of ocular irrigation.